


Mistlejoke

by QueerCosette



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Bad Jokes, Bullying, Cheesy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Jokes, Mistletoe, lila and chloé being awful as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28466163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueerCosette/pseuds/QueerCosette
Summary: My Secret Santa gift for flashflashitsash; Chat Noir comforts Ladybug after a rough day unwittingly caused by his own Christmas joke prop.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe
Comments: 25
Kudos: 166





	Mistlejoke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [runningash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningash/gifts).



> Happy Christmas, Ash!! I was your LO Secret Santa! Sorry it’s a little late; take 3500-odd words as my apology!

If it had been about three years previously, he would have commended himself as a genius for coming up with the idea - but now, at 16 years of age and having done quite a bit of growing up, he simply thought it would be quite good for a Holiday Spirit joke.

(Unfortunately, he’d been unable to buy the required item himself, because Adrien Agreste walking into a Claire’s Accessories during the holiday season might inspire a few too many rumours about non-existent girlfriends, and a mysterious man with a hood and sunglasses that he refused to remove walking into a Claire’s Accessories might get him banned by mall security. So it was Nino who had purchased it with Adrien’s money, on the condition that as reparation for walking into the allegedly haunted den of pink and purple glitter he could take it to school and give it a go with Alya.

“You owe me, dude,” he kept saying after the deed was done and the item safely hidden in Adrien’s satchel. “You owe me so many favours.”)

It wasn’t anything particularly embarrassing - in fact, the curly-haired salesgirl (who, unfortunately, was in Luka’s year and knew them from school) had laughed and informed him he was the fifth bloke to buy one that day.

“It’s cute,” she’d giggled. “I think it’s a very sweet way of asking for a kiss - y’know, unless she decked you the first time you asked,” she added sternly.

After assuring the girl (‘Carlotta’, her nametag proclaimed, who ‘joined the team in 2016’) that the lady in question was his girlfriend of two years and handing over less than ten percent of the money Adrien had given him ( _how_ expensive did he think these things were anyway?), Nino made his way back out of the mall to where Adrien was avoiding any lurking members of the press in the limousine and climbed in beside him, handing the little purple-and-white plastic bag over. Adrien peered in and grinned like the Cheshire cat.

“Excellent!” This was said with such enthusiasm Nino was surprised he didn’t rub his hands together like a cartoon supervillain.

“It’s a mistletoe headband, dude,” Nino snorted. “It wasn’t exactly a daring heist to get it.”

* * *

After Nino had indeed tried it out on Alya (to a roaring success, making him blush quite hard at her confident and cavalier response) the headband got passed around without any kisses under it - mostly just so everyone could have a bit of a giggle at the idea really - and got lost track of as the bell went for third period. It didn’t resurface again until the end of fourth period - which, most unfortunately, was gym, which at that point consisted of football for the boys and swimming for the girls. It wouldn’t have been quite so unfortunate if the location it resurfaced in hadn’t happened to be an exhausted Marinette’s satchel. She’d noticed it when she’d changed for gym, and was planning to simply return it at lunch with an apology (“I’m so sorry, Nino - I was up late… studying… last night.”) (If kicking an extremely pissed-off fishmonger Akuma’s butt counted as studying).

Alya and Juleka were both quick dressers and had vanished into the dry-room with the outlets so as to avoid spending the rest of the afternoon with soaking wet hair; Alix and Sabrina had already finished and left (although Sabrina was doubtless waiting outside for her beloved Chloé) and Rose and Myléne were both fans of long hot showers, so it was most unfortunate that the only people actually in the changing room who might have stood up for Marinette were the girls from the year above, who had swimming at the same time, and _they_ were all gathered in a group at the other end, towel-drying their hair and listening intently to some gossip about someone whose name Marinette didn’t recognise _(although,_ she thought, smiling to herself, _if her nose-job is as botched as they’re claiming, I’ll probably know her when I see her)_.

“Whoops!” someone said next to her. “My bad, Marinette! Hopefully nothing of importance was in there.”

Marinette looked up to see Lila Rossi smirking at her. The girl no longer held as much influence as she once had; her lying habit had been discovered six months ago, and while she’d managed to sob her way out of it by claiming she’d only told them to fit in and the longer they went on the harder it got to tell the truth, everyone had started to take her claims with a pinch of salt. She didn’t seem to realise how lucky she was that she’d gotten away with her lies to the teachers simply because by the time she’d been found out they’d been a week away from moving up to the senior school. So although she hadn’t been punished, all of the teachers at François Dupont Lycée had the measure of Lila by the time the summer was over, and no matter how many crocodile tears she forced out or sob stories she invented, no one was quite as sympathetic to her as they’d been in college. Sadly, this had done nothing to diminish her cunning, ruthlessness, cruelty, or dislike for Marinette, and the rivalry between the two was quite as strong as ever.

Marinette followed Lila’s gaze, and heaved a sigh as she saw her satchel lying on the ground, mere centimetres away from a pool of water Lila had squeezed out of her hair a few seconds before. There was annoyance in Lila’s fake-sympathetic smirk, and Marinette knew she’d been hoping the satchel would land in the puddle.

“Let me help you,” Lila said, voice dripping with syrupy sweetness in an attempt to mask her malicious undertone. She reached for the satchel, nastiness twinkling in her narrow green eyes.

“I’m perfectly capable of picking up my own belongings, Lila,” Marinette said, just as calm and casual as Lila. “I’m not an invalid -”

But it was too late; Lila had grabbed the strap of the satchel, which was lying front-down with the flap out in front of it like a fallen flag, and yanked it up sharply, making the topmost contents spill out onto the ground. _Intentionally,_ Marinette realised angrily, as Lila gave an exaggerated gasp of astonishment.

“That’s Nino’s mistletoe headband! Marinette, you weren’t trying to _steal_ it, were you?”

That got Chloé’s attention; she was always last in the changing room due to spending most of her time in it complaining about everything under the sun (that she wasn’t allowed to get out of swimming, that she had to wear a bathing cap, that Mlle Bertolucci, their gym teacher, was a bitch/a slave-driver/whatever insult came to mind that day, that the showers took too long to heat up, that she wasn’t allowed her own private changing room…) and was thus unintentionally present for any drama that went down after class.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” she sniffed, her dislike of Marinette momentarily outweighing her dislike of Lila. “Marinette’s always been _light-fingered._ You know she stole my bracelet a few years ago, Lila? It was solid gold with little amethysts -”

“I didn’t steal it, Chloé,” Marinette reminded her. “You just accused me of stealing it after you lost it yourself. Ladybug found it for you, didn’t she?”

Chloé stuck her nose in the air. “I still wouldn’t put it past you, Dupain-Cheng.”

“I bet I know why she’s stealing it,” Lila said, eyes alight with malevolence. “She wants to try and get a kiss out of _Adrien Agreste_ , don’t you, Marinette?”

That got the attention of the older girls; no one was quite as in awe of him as they’d been a few years previously, but Adrien Agreste’s name tended to spark interest if it was said when he wasn’t around.

Marinette felt her cheeks go pink. Certainly, the idea had _occurred_ to her, but she had no actual intention of following through with it. “Why is Adrien the first motive you think of whenever I do anything, Lila?” she returned the question, her blush not subsiding any but her voice steady and dignified.

Lila’s eyes widened; she would have been the picture of innocence were it not for her inability to keep her desire to smile under control. “Well, _isn’t_ Adrien the first thing you think of whenever you need a reason to do anything?” she asked, her voice mockingly contrite. “Aren’t you always wondering what Adrien will think of you if you do such-and-such, or what he’ll say if you ask for opinions on your little doodles, or how embarrassing it would be if Adrien knew about your ridiculous, pathetic, stalkery crush on him?”

“Who’s stalking who?” Marinette looked up; the older girls were no longer gossiping in a group, but were staring over with narrowed, suspicious eyes. The girl who had spoken was tall and well-built with long curly brown hair; she was a good swimmer, Marinette remembered Mlle Bertolucci praising her backstroke - what had she called her? Cara - Carla - _Carlotta_ , that was it!

Lila turned her phony contriteness towards Carlotta. “Oh - you might not have heard, Carlotta, but Marinette here - well, I don’t like to speak out of turn, but she’s been a bit, um, _pushy_ with this poor boy, Adrien - I’m just trying to help her understand that he’s never going to return her crush on her if she keeps following him around like a lost puppy -”

“Who cares?” snorted one of Carlotta’s friends, a pretty blonde girl with blue eyes framed by thick black lashes (Brooke, Marinette thought her name might be). “Adrien Agreste’s gorgeous, a lot of girls follow him around like lost puppies. I would if I didn’t have a boyfriend,” she grinned. Her friends all nodded in agreement, giggling.

Lila pursed her lips. “Yeah, but Marinette’s been at it since collége. It’s a bit… _inappropriate_ for it to go on this long, don’t you think? I mean, I’m a great personal friend of Adrien and I can see how _uncomfortable_ she makes him -”

“No, you’re not,” Marinette said sharply. She might struggle to stand up to lies about herself, but Lila was _not_ going to lie about Adrien again. “Adrien flinches when you touch him. He always makes excuses to not sit next to you. He only puts up with you because you’re ‘Gabriel Agreste’s new muse’, he told me! _You’re_ the one who makes him uncomfortable, Lila!”

Lila’s nostrils flared indignantly, but Carlotta spoke before she could respond. “Yeah, and you’re making _me_ a bit uncomfortable too, Lila,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “All this talk of ‘just trying to help’ - stop trying to help and mind your own business. I’d imagine Adrien’s pretty good at shaking off fangirls when he wants to be - if he hasn’t told Marinette to shove off yet, maybe he likes her attention and wants her to make a move.”

“Puh-LEASE!” Chloé said, far louder than was really necessary. “What does _Dupain-Cheng_ have to offer to Adrikins? She’s totally useless - she can’t even talk to him without stuttering! And she thinks she can just waltz in and impress Gabriel Agreste with those pathetic little doodles she calls art? I _don’t_ think so -”

“Shut up, Chloé,” Carlotta said coldly. Her wide brown eyes weren’t angrily fixed on Lila, however; instead, they were concerned and staring at poor Marinette, who was stuffing her towel back into her gym bag as fast as she could. Her hands were shaking; Chloé had never lost the quatriéme talent of pinpointing a person’s insecurities and ripping them apart with the ease and viciousness of a mauling grizzly bear mother. It was hard enough to keep her chin up when it was only Lila attacking her… but Chloé as well…

Marinette wanted nothing more than to get out of there.

“Marinette, I’m just trying to help you,” Lila said softly. “It’s time you understood that Adrien Agreste will never love a _talentless nobody_ like _you.”_

She couldn’t help it; she whimpered as distraught agreement flooded her brain like ice. _You’re right… he won’t…_

_Talentless…_

_Useless…_

**_Worthless…_ **

“I know,” Marinette whispered. “You don’t have to tell me that, Lila. I already know.” And she fled.

“WHAT THE **FUCK** IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” Marinette heard Carlotta bellowing at Lila as she sprinted out of the changing room and down the corridor away from her tormentors, and she couldn’t even find it in herself to grin about it. She’d heard the same things from Chloé a thousand times before, but it had never been specifically about her chances with Adrien, or in front of people who hadn’t been there to see the twelve-year rivalry between herself and Chloé build in all its toxic glory…

It made every insult exchanged feel all too accurate.

* * *

“What do you call an alligator wearing a vest?”

Nino shrugged. “Whatever he wants you to call him?”

“An _investigator!”_ Adrien grinned proudly at his terrible joke, waiting expectantly for Nino to react.

“I would call him ‘sir’,” Nino said after a moment, suppressing a smile because he refused to laugh at such an awful pun.

“Oh, _come on!”_ Adrien grinned. “That was amazing and you _know_ it.”

“Nope. I will never concede, dude. Puns are the lowest form of comedy.”

“But you concede that they _are_ a _form_ of comedy.” Adrien’s grin, if possible, widened. “I’ll convert you one day, Nino.”

“Never. Never, never, never, nev - Oh, hey, Marinette, are you sitting -?”

But Marinette didn’t sit with them; hiding her face behind her still-dripping hair, she thrust something at Nino, mumbled an apology, and sprinted out of the school cafeteria as fast as her legs could carry her.

“Marinette!” Adrien called after her. “Are you alright?”

He was too late; with the frankly impressive speed Marinette’s legs had been clipping past at, she could have been halfway across Paris. The two boys blinked and looked down at the item she’d dropped off: the mistletoe headband.

Nino uneasily looked up at Adrien. “Dude, I get the feeling that this thing’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

* * *

No one seemed to know what had happened; even Alya, when she arrived at their table, frowned and explained that she’d heard a group of girls in the year above angrily yelling their heads off at a tear-stained Lila and an indignant Chloé, but there had been no sign of Marinette by the time she’d finished drying her hair off.

* * *

Marinette didn’t show up for their Double Literature class.

It was shrugged off - no one was going to bother chasing down a lycée student during afternoon classes a few days before the start of the Christmas holiday - but Adrien had a nasty feeling that Lila and Chloé might have had something to do with it.

When the bell rang for the start of the second period, Alya whispered that Marinette had texted her not to worry, she was at home, but wouldn’t give up any more information.

Adrien’s stomach churned so much with worry, he couldn’t even work up excitement for his scheduled post-patrol meeting with Ladybug that evening.

* * *

He was still worrying by the time he actually finished patrolling the second arrondissement and met Ladybug on the roof of the shopping mall between Rue Saint-Martin and Rue Saint-Denis, although he’d since managed to relegate it to the back of his mind, instead focussing on his opening joke about his headband, the mistletoe bobbing in pride of place between his ears.

However, when she actually thumped down in front of him with red-rimmed eyes, his joke died in his throat as her red-rimmed eyes took centre-stage.

Forget silly props; his Lady’s distress immediately took priority over anything else.

“Hi, Chat,” she said. Her voice sounded rough, like she’d been crying noisily. She avoided his gaze, smushing the back of her hand against her cheeks. “Happy Christmas. Well, not Christmas, it’s not Christmas yet, but happy holidays, happy holiday vibe in general -”

“My Lady?” he said softly; she stopped babbling and looked up from trying to hide the evidence of her upset. “Are you… did something happen to you that I should know about?”

Ladybug shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Did something happen to you on patrol?” he persisted, his worry bubbling into his voice. It wouldn’t be the first time either of them had dealt with horrid comments from someone who took issue with the way they protected Paris.

But Ladybug shook her head again. “No - it was this afternoon. It’s just these two stupid girls in my year… it was way more public than it needed to be, they were accusing me of stealing from people, and stalking this guy, and I’m fine, I just _really_ don’t want to see another piece of mistletoe tonight -”

She cut herself off as she noticed his headband, and he hated the way she seemed to instinctively fold in on herself. He felt guilt at springing it on her, even though he knew there was no way he could have known she would be upset by it…

No. No more upsets. This was meant to be a happy time of year, all about reminding people how much you loved them, not panicking about stupid old-fashioned kissing traditions.

“Checking out my headband, Bugaboo?” he grinned, knowing that Ladybug tended to be easier to cheer up if her cheerer-upper was in a good mood themself. “It’s a very rare plant, you know. Similar to mistletoe, but with a different tradition attached to it.”

“Different… tradition?”

“Indeed,” he beamed. “It’s called Mistle _joke._ ”

Ladybug frowned, but it wasn’t upset, just confused. “I’ve never heard of a Mistlejoke -”

“It’s very, _very_ rare,” he insisted. “And traditionally, whoever gets trapped under it has to be subjected to cheesy, ridiculous jokes. As many jokes as there are berries. You’re in for…” he glanced up at the felt plant bobbing above his eyebrows, “seven jokes, my Lady.”

“What on earth are you on about, Chat? I’m really, _really_ not in the mood for -”

“How do you tell which end of a worm is its face?” he asked insistently. It seemed to catch Ladybug off-guard.

“How?” she asked, seemingly against her own will.

Chat kept his face as straight as he could. “You tickle it in the middle and look for which end smiles.”

An incredulous giggle burst from Ladybug’s lips. “You can’t tickle a worm -”

“You totally can,” he insisted. “It’s the only way to tell which end is its face. It’s scientific fact. Why did the little piggy always order five beers whenever he went out?”

“Why?”

“So he could go wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee all the way home!”

“That’s terrible,” Ladybug giggled, but her lips were beginning to curve up at the corners. “Awful. A crime against humour.”

“But you laughed,” Chat grinned. “It can’t be that bad if you’re laughing!”

“I’m laughing at the badness,” Ladybug informed him primly, but there was healthy colour blooming back into her pale cheeks, which were rounding out as her smile widened. “I’m laughing _because_ it’s so bad -”

“Why do seagulls fly over the sea?”

Ladybug couldn’t fight her smile any longer. “Why?”

“Because if they flew over the bay, they would be _bagels!”_

Ladybug spluttered a helpless giggle. “You’re as bad as my dad, I swear -”

“What goes ninety-nine-bonk?”

_“...Bonk?”_

“No,” Chat Noir suppressed a smile at Ladybug’s eye-roll. “A centipede with a wooden leg!”

Ladybug giggled so much she snorted; this sent both heroes into stitches from which they were unable to recover for several minutes. Chat eventually managed to choke out another joke:

“Why should you never go out in the jungle at night?”

“Why?”

“Because that’s when elephants do their parachute jumping.”

“That one doesn’t even make sense,” Ladybug wheezed, clutching her abdomen as she spluttered with laughter. “How is that supposed to -”

“Why are alligators flat?”

“Why?”

“BECAUSE THEY GO OUT IN THE JUNGLE AT NIGHT!”

Ladybug’s scream of laughter was so loud he would have been worried that it might cause some form of disgruntled, sleep-deprived Akuma to show up - if he hadn’t been laughing too hard himself that he’d fallen to his knees. He was delighted to see, as Ladybug leaned down to help him back to his feet, that tears were pouring down her cheeks - but this time, they were tears of joy rather than sadness.

“One last one, one last one - what do you call an alligator wearing a vest?”

“What?”

Chat Noir’s grin was as wide as the Paris skyline. “An _investigator!”_

Ladybug collapsed into his arms, her laugh ringing out as clear as a bell, and hugged him tightly. “Thank you, Chat Noir,” she said at last, a little breathlessly. “I needed that.”

As he opened his mouth to thank her, she did something quite unexpected: she hopped up onto her tiptoes and pressed a light kiss to his cheek.

“Happy Christmas, Kitty,” she said softly, and before he could reply, she had squeezed him tight one last time and skipped off across the rooftops, only pausing to wave as her yoyo found purchase on a far-off chimney stack.

“Happy Christmas,” he mumbled, touching his cheek where she kissed him and feeling warmth spreading across his nose. “Happy Christmas, my Lady.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it!!
> 
> Update: To all the lovely guest commenters who have said nice things about this story, I love you so much. Unfortunately, I've had to change the settings so that only registered users can comment as the Lila anon is harassing me. If you want to say nice things but you don't have an account, you're more than welcome to send me an ask over on tumblr @queer-cosette !!!
> 
> Challenge for the Lila anon: grow up and act like a normal fucking human being.


End file.
